Nvidia AGP card?

Hello to all,
Have an older machine a 2.8 Ghz P4 and 2 gigs of RAM but with an AGP slot.
While it would be nice to have a newer mobo w/ PCI Express slots I am stuck w/ this machine due to budget constraints.
I have read through several postings on vidoe cards in here and have gotten the inpression that nvidia is the way to go.
Unfortunately, the cards mentioned (ones w/ higher second digit) seem to be unavailable.
Have checked Tiger Direct, and NewEgg.

The pickings are rather sparse.....as seen on this page:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201069609639%201305520548&name=NVIDIA

Will the 6200 and the 5200's work? Or, perhaps the 5500, or 7300?
The 7600 is a bit steep for my budget but if is deemed as being a really good choice iI may just cough up the dough for it.

Any recommendations, and or advice would be appreciated in regards to this.

Thank You Very Much!!!!!
Zave

If it were me I'd go for the best I could get for the money I could pay..........either nVidia or ATI. I would not put much into a card for that machine.......it's getting old and AGP is on the way out so money spent is money that will only buy you a little more time before a new computer would be the best way to go.....which is not that far in the future. Save your pennies for a new computer and only spend as much as you absolutely have to in order to keep that one alive until you can get something else.

Editing to add, I had an nVidia 6250 that worked........not exceptionally well but it worked. That was about 2 years ago so SL may have outrun the capabilities of that card now. If the 7300 is at a good price you might give it serious thought. Or, look at ATI (those cards do work though they tend to need a little more work to get them satisfactory for you.....usually just finding the correct driver for OpenGL support).

Putting nvidia agp 6600 into Google Shopping returns some 6600GTs and such for 50 dollars or so. Whether you want to trust the companies or not might be a valid issue to ponder.

Also before you buy or even shop much you need to know how much power your power supply can provide. No point in buying a low priced card and then find that it doesn't work without investing in a power supply you don't want to pay for.

I was in your boat not too long ago.

P4 with no PCI-Express slots....only PCI.

After driving ALL over town, the only thing I could find was a NVidia 5500 that I paid too much for.

It was crazy slow.... but it got me through my 1st year in SL and it was good enough to learn to build and script. I managed fine, unless I TP into some club full of blingtards.

But I finally had enough of that nonsense and bought a cheap barebones MB/CPU/RAM kit and added a nVidia 9800.... a world of difference.

I don't know if I'd call the 7600 a "really good choice", but it's the best Newegg has available right now. I would not feel comfortable recommending anything with below a 6 in the second digit, certainly not a 2.

AGP cards are starting to approach near impossible to find, as I'm sure you've discovered. Pickings will be slim, no matter where you look.

The ATI offerings for the AGP bus are probably better than what's left from Nvidia now. I'd seriously look at the ATI 2600XT or HD3850.

I'd definitely get a 2600XT over any of the bottom feeder (the x2xx and x3xx) cards from Nvidia.

What video card do you have now?

Where are you located? I have a 7600GT AGP card here that I don't need anymore. I'd have to ship it from Germany though. I'd be willing to sell it for L$ though. Drop me an IM if you're interested.

Remember! You can always use a third party client.

Some of them out there have all the security fixes/bug fixes of LLs current viewer but use the old 1.18.x rendering system, which is excellent with all these old cards.

Wow!!
want to thank all for the replies....
Much to consider here, still taking it all in.

I currently SL on my laptop, which is a thinkpad with a 1.7Ghz Intel processor with 2gigs of PC 2100 memory.
Windows XP SP2.
The vidio is ATI....mobility Radeon 7500 (M7) w/ only 32Mb of memory!!

Understanding that, I would assume that any of the cards mentioned would be a leap in performance over those specifications.

While i realize the impending death of AGP, would i notice the difference in performance on my desktop w/ any of these cards...over the laptop?

The desktop machine has onboard video....Intel chipset....no need to say more than it sucks.

Realize that the machine is near end-of-life for anything requiring intensive graphics, but am basically seeking better peformance over the laptop. If i can get a better card than laptop for $75 and a higher wattage power supply for $30..i am happy : ) ......At least till the next student loan check comes in : )

To Dylan in Germany a special thanks!!! Live in US in NC. Really appeciate your offer...if you lived nearby, i'd buy the card from you...and a few beers to boot!!

Again...really appreciate the responses..Thank You!

Zave

Okay if you are considering a new computer in the near future what's wrong with a PCI card? They are loads more plentiful and cheaper too. Not quite as fast as AGP but faster than that intel crap you have now.

I'm pretty sure you can find a 7000 series PCI card with 128 to 256 megs of VRAM for quite reasonable. I'm basing that on my 8600GT PCI express card with 256 on card RAM going for 50 USD or less. Worth a look anyway

Newegg has an AGP ATI 2600XT for $60 ($50 after rebate). I think while you can spend less on a card, you're wasting your money doing so.

That's a very fast card, and a very reasonable price.

Hello to all, and thanks again for the input.
I purchased the AGP ATI 2600XT and it installed flawlessly....

Now more issues and questions......

I used the driver provided with the card (ATI 8.541.0.0 dated 9/23/200 and right off the bat know that this is not gonna be the driver of choice.
In SL the screen is way too dark. about as bad as the output of the onboard Intel graphics.
Peggy mentioned the use of OpenGL drivers...

This card is able to support OpenGL 2.0 according to the liturature....

Where may i find the OpenGL drivers, and has anyone had experience w/ this card and a particular driver that worked well?

Thanks Again!!!
Zave

I know next to nothing about ATI cards. I use nVidia. However, even nVidia has issues with OpenGL dependant programs. The problems revolves around the real life fact that most games offered to the world are games optimized for computers having Windows operating systems (Windows is still the largest, by a rather wide margin, OS used in the world). Those games depend on DirectX for their rendering. The graphics manufacturers, in order to satisfy the vast majority of their users, opitmize the drivers to meet that rendering engine's requirements. OpenGL takes a second seat behind DirectX. That fact makes it sometimes difficult for the programs utilizing OpenGL. Programs like SL, which are ever evolving, often out run the driver software being developed. It requires searching for and finding drivers that work...........sometimes not the easiest thing to do. ATI seems (at the moment) to be somewhat behind nVidia in the OpenGL department.....that can change in a heart beat. If you were using nVidia I could direct you to a driver that is capable of running SL without flaws.........and it is not the most recent driver available either. I'm sure someone here can steer you toward a driver that has satisfactory performance. But, you can find one yourself by trying different drivers one at a time (that's how drivers that work for SL are found by others here).

OpenGL 2.0 support does not mean SL will work correctly. It merely means it supports programs that use that version of OpenGL..............not the specific rendering requirements of any program using OpenGL 2.0. Second Life's requirements change often......and the card makers are behind the curve more often than not. Especially in the OpenGL department.

You'll probably want to download the drivers from the card manufacturer's web site.

OpenGL will be part of the Windows drivers, so you don't really have to worry about that.

The driver determines what is supported or not supported (of course the card must also have the support but the degree to which anything is supported is what the driver does). If the card does not have a driver that properly supports the features needed by any program then there will be problems.........no matter how the card is designed. Windows the operatiing system has little to do with OpenGL support. It merely uses the driver software to do what the program using OpenGL requires to deliver the results. Windows does have a lot to do with DirectX support though.....DirectX is a Windows "product". A driver must be coded for specific operating systems. A Linux or Mac driver will not work with a Windows machine or vice versa.

Any driver has a spec sheet to read.....if it does not say it supports OpenGL 2.0 or higher then it won't work well with SL. Not much of a problem now since OpenGL 2.0 has been around for some time.

As it stands right now if you are using an nVidia card any driver that is somewhere between 175.xx and 178.xx with the exception of the 177.xx releases should work for SL....those drivers are anywhere from 2 months to 6 months old. Both ATI and nVidia started having issues with SL at approximately the same time.........so for ATI drivers I would look at that range of dates of releases for a working driver.

In an attempt to resurrect this thread.....

Anyone here use this card w/ good results?
Have it installed...it works, but the image is too dark.
Is this a driver issue...or is something to do w/ settings within the sl viewer?


Thanks!!!
Zave

Try your Graphics Settings in Preferences. Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Options > Gamma

Is SL the only program that's dark for you?

Thanks for the reply Sophie......and sorry for the delay in my response.

Went into the setting as you described and am unable to adjust gamma...the feature is greyed out.....and is set at 0.00....

Is this a driver issue?

All other programs on the computer look fine....

Thanks Again!
Zave

/me has been using mx400 64mb video card for 2yrs and haz no problems minus the eye candy.


but best suggestion is either the 6200 or 6800